Connecting with God through poetic articulations of lived, embodied experience–engaging texts from the Revised Common Lectionary for Christian churches, other biblical and spiritual texts, and evocations of the divine in rituals and other public events–always accepting lived reality as a primary source of divine revelation and mystery.

Reflection offered on January 1, 2017 at Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C.

God gives us so much. With the psalmist we give thanks and praise, but the singer also knows we may not be all we think we are. What are human beings that God cares about us? Is it because we are created to be divine franchise agents, with everything at our feet–presumably God knew what She was doing, but polluted lakes and streams, endangered species, stripped-mine hillsides, fouled air, war, poverty, and group hates and ugly stories about those not like us, may create skepticism in parts of heaven not to mention earth.

There is a time for all that, of course, but so much more, or maybe less, I mean the simple ways of living in peace and hope and love and joy that God intends which could take up all our time if we accepted the gift of God: that all people should eat, drink, and enjoy the results of their hard work. It seems so simple, and it is, but not easy, never easy when every day in so may ways we are tempted by the siren calls of those who claim to have something better: building walls to keep people out, a bigger house or better car and internet to go faster, private schools to increase odds of Ivy League admissions, droning, bombing everyone who looks at us wrong, making sure there are enough guns to shoot every person, adult and child, at least once, and kill as many of them as necessary to keep stocks rising along with income gaps widening between rich and poor at home, even slowing the climb of other nations out of the rut of domination.

But its not too late. It is never too late with God–that is what makes God, God. She, or He, or They, refuse, despite ancient testimonies| to the contrary, to give up on us, you and me, too, and the others, even those whose agendas seem foreign and evil. No one is a hopeless case with God.

The divine calendar is not ours, so there has been only one new year, how many millions of years ago we do not know, and God is not counting, but this is the moment of our latest attempt at renewal, and in truth we can make the most of it—yes, with resolutions of self-improvement if we must, but even more powerfully by a simple, again not easy, commitment to listen to our individual and collective souls where rests and rises the voice and hope and love of God. And justice, too.

Let us not forget justice, divine justice which is not to punish or even chastise but to repair, heal, move us to change, to do differently, better than last time.Self-care is important, essential, but with God the we is as important as the I, and the test of fealty to our holy parent is how well we treat the rest of our human family, the ones God loves as much as God loves us, not more not less, often in different ways but still with an arm around all and each of us at all times, everywhere without end. World without end.

Don’t we know not to fear what is coming, because of what God has given, and continues to give, even when we don’t earn it? If we truly know and savor and trust what God has provided, can we not share in the bounty willingly, freely, joyously, generously, so that no one goes without, no child is hungry, no refugee is turned away from some safe place, no young Black men and trans women hunted and slaughtered on our streets, no body is without health care, no holy prayers cursed regardless what God or gods or heavens are invoked.

This is the year God is making, again, for us, with us, so let us rejoice and be glad in it, and show our gratitude by making this the Year of Our God and All God’s people, taking care of each human other and all the rest of Creation, too, finally rising to meet the divine challenge issued, earthly opportunity given, at dawn on the first new year long ago, to be Eden on earth again, and forever.

About this poem . . . . Two biblical readings without a real story presented a challenge for me, but I soon realized that the gratitude, reality, and hope present in them fit for today. This is of course the gift of Scripture, and indeed in some way or other all inspired writing (whether called “holy” or not). And as I finished the earliest draft, I remembered poem inspired by Judy Chicago’s famous art installation, The Dinner Party, with its evocation of Eden. God must keep hoping we shall yet understand, accept, and celebrate the gift of life caught in that ancient story.